He’d had a haircut and put on his best jacket, the beige corduroy, with a pale blue snap-button shirt. He’d wondered awhile about coming in uniform but decided it might make him look too stiff. Instead, for a touch of businesslike authority, he took his briefcase with him into the restaurant and arrived a few minutes late, as if he might have been held up at some important meeting.
She stood up and smiled and held out her hand.
“Hello, Charlie. It’s so good to see you.”
Her hand felt cool. He said it was good to see her too. She was wearing black jeans and a white shirt under an open navy cardigan, a single string of pearls around her neck. She had a slight tan and had done something different to her hair, but maybe he only thought that because the last time it had been bedraggled by rain. She looked stunning. He had never dined with a woman so classy and beautiful in his entire life.
It was so sweet how diligently he had kept in touch, Sarah thought. Maybe it was standard procedure when they were dealing with the parents of a victim as opposed to those of a criminal. By her death, Abbie had, of course, neatly switched categories.
He was telling her about the ride he’d had with his daughter a couple of weeks back, and how, looking down that slope, he had become even more convinced that Abbie must have fallen. It was obvious he hadn’t anything new or important to tell her, but Sarah hadn’t expected it, nor did she mind. He was such a nice guy and she was enjoying his company. It was some time since she’d had dinner on her own with a man and she could tell by the way he looked at her with those kind blue eyes that he was a little smitten.
He had asked her already how her research had been going. She had been here two days and had met up with some of Abbie’s teachers and friends, all of whom had been warm and generous and helpful, especially Mel and Scott, who had stayed on at UM to do postgraduate work. The only thing that had been a little hard to take was hearing that Mel was five months pregnant. They were going to get married at Thanksgiving.
Sarah didn’t tell Charlie much about what she was planning to write, partly because she was shy about it and partly because she wasn’t altogether sure herself. Iris had called it an exercise in closure and she was probably right.
“So is Lucy your only child?”
“Yeah. But she’s got enough spirit for twenty. Ran the household from the age of about six months. Kind of full-on, you know?”
“I do. Abbie was like that.”
“I’m sorry. I—”
“Charlie, please. It’s okay, really.”
He looked so embarrassed that she put a hand, briefly, on his.
“Tell me more about her.”
He did and with a little prompting got to talking about his marriage and how it hadn’t worked out and that it was probably more his fault than Sheryl’s. He said that if he had the chance over again he’d do things differently, pay more attention, be there more. Then, almost out of nowhere, he asked her how Benjamin was and she had to say she didn’t really know, but that she thought he was okay.
The truth was, they had only spoken a couple of times since the funeral and on each occasion it had been oddly formal, a little stilted. Sarah had a pretty good idea why. It was what she had said to him on the plane, about Abbie’s death being his fault. She couldn’t believe she had said such a terrible thing. Being here again in Missoula these past couple of days and talking about Abbie with Mel and Scott and the others, she’d had time to reflect and something inside her had shifted. She had even been thinking that she should probably write to him and apologize.
“He has a new life, a whole new support system, you know?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Charlie Riggs, if you don’t stop apologizing, I’m going to start getting cross with you.”
He smiled. She finished her wine and he poured her some more.
“We’re both divorced, single adults,” she went on. “We should be able to talk about these things.”
“Absolutely.”
“So Sheryl got married again. Why not you?”
“Well. Partly work, I guess. You know, I’ve got a patch of almost two and a half thousand square miles to cover. Makes you kind of tired just looking at the map. And the other thing, I guess, is that there’s not too much choice. There’s plenty of cattle and critters, trees, and empty space out there on the Front Range, but not a whole lot of people.”
Sarah smiled and for a moment they just looked at each other.
“How about you?” he said.
She laughed.
“How old are you, Charlie?”
“I’m forty-four. No, forty-five.”
“How old do you think I am?”
“I was brought up not to speculate on such matters.”
“Go on, guess.”
“Hell, thirty-nine maybe?”
“You’re so full of . . .”
He smiled at her and took a sip of his wine.
“I’ll be fifty next fall.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“It’s true. Sometimes I feel a lot, lot older. And sometimes I feel about eighteen.”
“How old do you feel tonight?”
“About thirty-nine.”
He laughed.
“The thing is,” she went on, “available men of my age, I mean, suitable men—and believe me they’re not too thick on the ground—all want to date women twenty years younger.”
“Well, I’d say, if they’re that dumb, they don’t qualify as suitable.”
She’d been wondering what she’d say if he asked her to go to bed with him. Not that he was likely to. He was too polite. Which was a pity, because the idea appealed to her strongly. If anybody was going to make the move, it would have to be her. But she’d never done such a thing in her life. And she’d probably end up regretting it anyway.
“On the other hand,” he said. “To be honest, living on your own has a few things going for it. You can leave the dishes without anyone getting mad at you, slop around, you know. Read all day if you want to.”
She took the cue (though she doubted it was so intended) and steered out of the danger zone by asking him what he was reading at the moment. And for the rest of the meal all they talked about was books. She promised to send him a novel that she had just read. It was by a young Mexican writer and the best book she’d read all year.
“There’s something else you can do for me too,” he said, after she had let him win the fight over who should pay the check.
“And what might that be?”
“I’d like some better pictures of Abbie. You know how people can look so different sometimes? How you can show someone two pictures of the same person and they’ll recognize one and not the other? Well, if I had a couple more to show around, maybe it’d help trigger folks’ memories a little better.”
Sarah reached to the floor for her purse.
“I’ve got some with me, if you like.”
She took out the little plastic envelope she always carried. There were probably a dozen photos in it of Abbie and Josh. Though none of Benjamin anymore. She handed them to Charlie and he carefully went through them.
“This’d be Josh, of course.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What’s he up to at the moment?”
“In his final year at NYU. And after that, well, we’re all waiting to find out. He’s had a lot to handle these last few years.”
“He looks like a nice guy.”
“He’s more than that. He’s amazing.”
He turned to the next picture. It was of Abbie and Josh during that final vacation at The Divide. They were in close-up, grinning and doing their almost peace signs.
“Josh again, huh?”
“Yes. He lost the top of his finger in a car door when he was little. The peace sign’s a sort of family joke. Almost peace.”
Charlie nodded but kept staring at the picture. Then he gave an abrupt little smile and quickly flipped through the last few pictures.
“Some
of these would do just fine,” he said. “Could I get copies made?”
“Of course, take them. As long as you let me have them back.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll do it tomorrow.”
THIRTY-ONE
Josh had been hoping Nikki might call, so even though he was in class, where there was a strict rule that cell phones should be turned off, his was on vibrate. He was sitting at the end of the back row, near the door, so that if she called he could slip out, as if to the restroom.
The class was on something called the Age of the Enlightenment, about which Josh remained completely in the dark. The woman had been droning on for half an hour and he’d been trying to take notes which already, when he looked down at them, meant absolutely nothing to him. Things like crumbling of feudal edifice, perfectibility and progress, humanized theological systems. Josh had his elbows on the desk, head heavily propped on his fists in case he nodded off.
“Diderot, however, saw religious dogma as absurd and obscure,” she now declared.
Absurd and obscure, he wrote. Then he felt his phone start to wobble in his pocket and he stealthily slipped it out, expecting to see Nikki’s name on the screen. But it was a number he didn’t recognize. He let it go to voice mail.
Only when he was outside in the cold November sunshine, eating a turkey-salad sandwich as he walked back to the apartment, did he check the message. When he heard who it was, he almost choked.
“Hi, Josh. This is Sheriff Charlie Riggs from Choteau, Montana. I’m in New York and I’d be real grateful if you could maybe spare me half an hour of your time. There’s a couple of things concerning your sister that I thought you might be able to help us with. You can call me back on this cell number. The subject’s kind of sensitive, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention this call to your mom and dad just yet or anyone else. Look forward to hearing from you. Bye now.”
Josh felt his world start to tilt. Oh man, he thought. Here we go. They’ve found Rolf’s body.
He called the number and tried not to sound frightened, just interested and helpful. The guy seemed friendly. Best not to get too paranoid. They tried to figure out where to meet but his mind was racing too fast to think of anywhere, so the guy suggested the Brooklyn Bridge. He said he’d only once before been to New York and someone had told him the view from the bridge at sunset was spectacular. What was this? Josh wondered. Was the guy just here on vacation? They arranged to meet at four o’clock at the Manhattan end of the south-side walkway.
“How will I recognize you?” Josh asked.
“I’ll be the one with the star and the Stetson.”
“Right.”
“I’m kidding. It’s okay, I know what you look like.”
That got him even more paranoid. How could this guy know what he looked like? Four o’clock was two hours away and Josh spent them in his room at the apartment. It was in a run-down block just off East Broadway and he shared it with three guys from NYU, all of whom he liked well enough but wasn’t that close to. Luckily, nobody else was home. He thought of calling Freddie but decided not to. He’d told him a little, but not the whole story, not about what really happened with Rolf. Ty must have talked. That would be it. Maybe he should call him? But then, maybe they had a wiretap on him in case he did just that. Jesus, he thought. Oh Jesus.
Quite why he did so, he wasn’t sure, but at three-thirty, when he’d put on his coat and was heading for the door, he stopped and went back to his desk. He knelt down and reached underneath and felt for the little package taped behind the drawer. And he ripped it clear and put it in his pocket and set off.
Charlie was leaning on the rail, watching the sun creep down toward the skyline. The city looked amazing, the sun flashing on cliffs of glass, the lights of the skyscrapers starting to twinkle. He was trying to figure out where exactly the World Trade Center had been but he didn’t know the geography well enough to place it.
He saw Josh walking toward him and even from a hundred yards in the low glare of the sun he could see how scared the poor kid looked. He was wearing a black parka and a red beanie pulled down to his eyebrows. As he came closer he caught a glimpse of Sarah in the boy’s pale face. Charlie stepped toward him and held out a hand.
“Hello, Josh.”
“Hi.”
The boy’s handshake was weak and cautious. They didn’t teach kids how to shake hands anymore. Josh quickly stuck both hands back into his pockets and didn’t seem to want to look him in the eyes. Charlie nodded at the view.
“Quite a sight, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“I was trying to figure out where the towers were—”
“Over there.” Josh pointed, without a great deal of interest.
“Shall we take a walk?”
“If you want.”
They set off, strolling side by side along the boardwalk, the traffic roaring below them, taillights flickering in the cracks between the planks.
“What’s all this about?”
“Well, these past few months, we’ve been trying to figure out what happened to Abbie. How she came to be where we found her, who she might have been with, that kind of thing. And I thought you might be able to help clear up a few things for us. Is that okay?”
“I guess.”
“How well do you know Ty Hawkins?”
“Not really at all. He was a wrangler at the ranch we used to go to. He and Abbie had a thing going for a while.”
“I know.”
“And the cops got it wrong and thought he was involved in that thing in Denver.”
“Uh-huh. When was the last time you saw Ty or spoke with him?”
Josh shrugged, keeping his eyes straight ahead.
“I don’t know.”
“Roughly.”
“Years ago.”
“Is that really true?”
“Yeah, why? Does he say something different?”
Charlie didn’t answer. He was trying to give the impression that he knew a whole lot more than he did. He didn’t even really know why he’d started with the question about Ty, but it seemed to have touched a nerve.
“When was the last time you saw your sister?”
He saw Josh swallow.
“Same. Years ago. Like everyone else.”
“So why would you have been in Choteau at the end of September last year?”
Josh turned to look at him, frowning and shaking his head as if he didn’t understand.
“What do you mean? I wasn’t.”
“Yes, you were.”
Josh didn’t say anything. A happy group of Japanese tourists were having their picture taken against the sunset. It was getting cold. Charlie and Josh negotiated a way around them and didn’t speak again until they were clear.
“Josh, unless you’re going to level with me, this is going to be a whole lot harder for the both of us. Now, I know you were in Choteau and I know you were in Great Falls.”
Josh said nothing.
“Josh,” Charlie said gently. “I’ve seen your cell phone records.”
The boy closed his eyes for a moment, clearly cussing himself.
“And the flight records. You flew in from Denver. The cameras at the airport recorded pictures of Ty Hawkins meeting you there. You were also caught on camera in the gas station when you dropped all those coins. The gal who helped you pick them up has identified you from photographs. So let’s save ourselves time and cut the bullshit, okay?”
Charlie stopped walking and Josh halted a few paces ahead but didn’t turn to face him. He still had his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his parka.
“Tell me what happened, Josh.”
What was the point in lying anymore? The guy seemed to know most of the story anyway. And more lies would probably only make it worse. For everyone. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake as Abbie. If she’d only come clean straightaway and told everyone they hadn’t meant to kill the McGuigan boy, she might still be alive. He let his shoulders slump and walk
ed to the rail and leaned there staring out at the river and the harbor. Charlie Riggs came up beside him and did the same. Josh took a deep breath and began.
“Abbie wanted to turn herself in. When she found out she was pregnant, she ran away from Rolf. She told Ty the guy had been treating her badly, hitting her and . . . I don’t know. Anyhow, she went to Ty’s place and the two of them holed up in a cabin somewhere out of Choteau, up in the mountains.”
“Jesse Wheeler’s place.”
“Ty’s told you all this already, I guess.”
“I’d like to hear it from you. All of it. How long were they there?”
“I don’t know. Two weeks maybe. They were trying to figure out the best way for Abbie to turn herself in, you know, how to give herself the best chance of not going to jail forever. I tell you, she was a totally different person from how she was the last time I . . .”
He realized he was tripping himself up on a lie he’d already told.
“The last time you saw her? And when was that?”
Josh sighed. He might as well come clean.
“The spring before Nine-Eleven. Here in New York. She wanted money. She was, like, crazy. Like somebody I didn’t know. Anyhow, September last year, she called me. I was in Colorado seeing a friend of mine. So I flew up to Great Falls and . . . well, you know.”
“What did they want you to do?”
“Bring her home. Back here to New York. Fix up a meeting with Mom and Dad. The idea was they’d sort out the lawyers and all that, see if they could make some kind of deal. She looked so pretty. It was Abbie again.”
“How were you going to get her here?”
“Rolf’s car. Her car, I guess. The one she took when she left him.”
“Did you ever get to meet Rolf?”
Josh gave a little sour laugh and looked away. This was it. The point of no return. Maybe he should stop now.
“Josh?”
He turned. The sheriff was staring hard at him. He seemed like a decent guy. He probably knew everything.